What religions really say about suicide

It has been a bad time for celebrity news, with several high-profile suicides bringing the difficult topic to the forefront of people’s minds, reawakening painful memories for those who have lost a friend or family member in similar circumstances.

On June 5, Kate Spade, an American fashion designer, was found by her housekeeper in her Manhattan home. Her husband Andy subsequently released a statement describing her struggle with anxiety and depression, something she’d apparently worried would harm her business reputation.

Just a few days later, hotel reception was called to enter the room of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain in Kaysersberg, France, after a worried friend noted Bourdain had missed both dinner and breakfast.

Amid the outpouring of shock and grief in the wake of the latter’s passing, one Twitterer attempted to capture five minutes of shameful fame, surfing the waves of media interest in the celebrity chef’s demise.

Quipping a last-word barb at Bourdain, he declared that religious people believe hell or purgatory is his afterworld destination – divine punishment for those who commit suicide.

Many people immediately objected to such a simplistic summary of religious beliefs about suicide, including Jesuit Father James Martin, who replied that it “is usually the result of depression, which is an illness. And God does not condemn the ill,” citing John 9:3. Misrepresenting complex religious doctrine is, unfortunately, ubiquitous in our modern world; religious illiteracy is rife, particularly among journalists and public commentators.However, while we can scoff at ignorant tweets, the loved ones left behind by those who commit suicide can be haunted by the dark thought that hell is where their friend or family member now suffers in torment.

It was the theme of Robin Williams’ 1998 movie “What Dreams May Come.” Based on the book by Richard Matheson, the main character arrives in heaven, after which he discovers his wife has committed suicide due to a mental breakdown caused by the loss of her children and then of her husband in separate car crashes.

He is determined to undertake the impossible and rescue her from the hell in which she is keeping herself.

Williams himself sadly committed suicide in 2014; he had been struggling with mental and physical ill-health including depression, anxiety, paranoia, insomnia and the early stages of Parkinson’s disease.

It is perhaps the suffering that suicide inflicts on those left behind and the forever unanswerable questions – Why? What could we have done to help? Didn’t they realize that “this too shall pass”? – that makes suicide more than simply an individual’s choice to no longer bear the pain of existence. But it is simplistic to declare that God sends all such souls to eternal damnation.

While all the great religious traditions generally proscribe suicide, they also contain nuanced views of the suicide’s fate. In the Eastern reincarnation-based traditions, particularly Hinduism and Buddhism, selfish suicide violates the code of ahimsa “non-violence.”

All life is sacred and suicide is a type of self-murder, which can negatively affect the soul’s rebirth. However, in some cases suicide as a result of extreme asceticism or where death is immanent is understood differently.

In Judaism, suicide is considered a sin that means a person would be buried in a separate section of the cemetery without receiving mourning rites.

Yet rabbis can exercise discretion and lift the ruling for those considered mentally unwell or where it was possible that such a person could have repented for their act immediately before death occurring.

The most famous Christian suicide was Judas Iscariot, who hanged himself presumably in great remorse for having betrayed Jesus (Matthew 27:1-10). Although suicide is not explicitly condemned in the New Testament, early Christian theologians declared it a mortal sin based on the fifth commandment “thou shalt not kill” (Exodus 20:13).

But as with Judaism, and also Islam, the official Catholic catechism holds that those who are mentally unwell are not fully culpable: “Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide.” Other Christian churches often take a similar position.

Likewise, although the Quran forbids suicide as a grave sin, saying: “Do not kill yourselves, surely God is most merciful to you” (Quran 4:29), if someone lacks the capacity to make rational decisions, in either permanent or temporary insanity, the ordinary rulings about sin no longer apply to them. Their fate is left to the mercy of God.

What all the great traditions have in common is the acknowledgement that hardship and suffering are hard-wired into this mortal existence, but there is also help, love, forgiveness and strength to sustain us.

It is our secular modern world that sells the mirage that easy happiness can be had if you are beautiful or rich enough – a lie with tragic consequences for those who feel life has failed them, or they have failed life.

Dr. Rachel Woodlock is an expatriate Australian academic and writer living in Ireland.

This article first appeared on La Croix International, the English-website of the independent European Catholic daily La Croix.